Kai was playing Edgemaster the new VRRPG from Exodus when the game world flickered and shut off. His helmet displayed a blue screen with the offline message. Overlayed on top of that he saw another message.

Welcome to New Earth! Your world has entered into the Nexus, as such you are now running on a new system to give you the tools and challenges to survive and live a fulfilling life! Good Luck.

Basic Stats Set!

Kai Jameson

Class: ---

Level: N/A

Health(/R per hour): 33 (16.75)

Mana(/R per hour): 17 (6.75)

Stam(/R per min): 19 (9)

Vitality: 4

Endurance: 3

Strength: 3

Agility: 4

Perception: 3

Reaction: 3

Resistance: 2

Willpower: 2

Intelligence: 3

Wisdom: 1

Control: 1

Focus: 1

For more information, you can view your stats anytime by thinking “Menu” and then selecting “Status”.

Congratulations! The “Newbie Path” is open to you!

No light and no sound came in. Kai tipped his helmet off and looked around his dark apartment. All the screens except the offline message were still displayed across his vision. “What the fuck is going on?” He walked over and kicked his battery backup system. “So much for never fails.” The green light glared at him in mockery. “Damn an internet issue right at that dungeon boss. Well fuck it.” Kai threw his helmet onto the bed.

Kai heard a scream in the distance. A scratch came from the door to his room; it didn’t sound like Zed, his german shepherd. It had a hesitancy about it that Zed didn’t have. He opened the door expecting to see a rat or some other rodent. What he got was nothing of the sort. A creature that looked straight out of dad’s favorite horror/sci-fi movie Aliens was there on the ground in miniature version. The head had an arc to it with the back larger than the front. Multiple tentacle appendages came off its back and it used four leg/arm like things to crawl towards him. Kai thought about pissing himself for a moment and decided if it had been larger he might have, but as it was about the size of a dachshund he just kicked the damn thing. The creature sailed down the hall and thumped into a door as Kai yelled for Zed. Kai rushed into the family’s workout room and grabbed a twenty pound barbell. The creature had followed him and Kai saw words above its head: Dweller Level 2.

“What the fuck is going on?” The creature jumped towards Kai’s face and he executed a straight punch. The barbell added significant force to the punch and he felt the skull of the creature crumple inward and fall to the floor limp. Kai punched it three more times with the weighted hand until there were alien brains all over the floor. “You can never be too sure. Zed come here boy. Where are you?”

Kai ran from the workout room toward the living room. He rounded the corner and stopped dead on his feet. Three of the creatures were pulverized with bite marks and they lay bleeding on the floor. Zed lay near the corner of the room with one of the creatures on top of him. Kai wasn’t certain but it appeared as though the creature vomited an egg into Zed’s mouth and then pushed it further inside.

“Get the fuck off my dog!” Kai ran forward and punched the creature as it began to detach from Zed’s mouth. The punch launched another Level 2 Dweller into the wall with a splat. Kai immediately followed the punch with a front leg push kick that smashed the creatures internals all over the wall. He scanned the condo for more of the creatures and saw none. Kai bent down and checked Zed. He saw no chest movement and saw blood pooled beneath the body. “Damn it." He looked in the dog’s throat as he knew that he’d seen something get pushed in there. “What the fuck is this?” Kai pulled a pulpy mass from Zed’s throat. It had words floating above it. Dweller Embyo

Kai dropped the embryo on the ground and crushed it with his heel. “Not in my house you sick fucks.” Kai heard another scream from somewhere nearby, maybe another condo. “Shit.” He ran and grabbed his workout and equipment bag from his room. He opened his closet and got his Beretta from the wall safe. Next he grabbed his Bokken and raced to the front door.

In the hall were two more of the Dweller creatures, both level 3. The bokken allowed him to make short work of them and he raced for the building stairs when he heard a scream that was a hell of a lot closer, right down the hall. He stopped. “Sounded like Em's place.” He ran past the condo door he’d exited and went past two more with no sounds from inside. At the third door he grabbed the handle and pushed but found the door locked. “Em open the door!” he shouted. After a few seconds with no response Kai performed a front push kick on it the way he’d seen in movies a hundred times. The movies lied. He found himself on the floor where he’d fallen after the door resisted the kick but there had been a little movement so he jumped up and kicked again; he paid particular attention to his balance after the kick landed and didn’t fall this time. He kicked the door at least twelve times if not more, when the bolt finally shattered and the door sagged open a massacre came into view.

There were over twenty of the creatures throughout the room. Emily, her parents, and the two younger siblings were all down. Emily fought against one that had gotten on top of her and tried to use its tentacles to choke her as she held it away.Her time was almost up as three more of the creatures headed towards her. “Keep fighting Em I’m coming.” Kai pulled the Baretta with his left hand and fired off a shot at the creature on Emily. He swung the bokken with his right to clear a path on the floor and swept two more to the side but not fatally he noticed.

He reached Emily as she finally untangled one of the Dweller’s tentacles from her neck and heaved the body to the side. “Get up we have to go. Now.” He didn’t mean to yell but that’s how it came out.

“My family?” Her voice trailed off with a sob as the scene began to register. Tears began to stream down her face. “My family…” she wailed as she began to crumple to the floor. Kai caught her and fired the Baretta at two creatures that approached. "Em I need you to help me get us out of here."

He handed her the bokken and fired four more shots at fast approaching dwellers. “Em there’s no time. I’m so sorry but we have to go now. Use the bokken to swat anything that comes close.”

“Use the what?” She saw the bokken in her hand. “This stick? You have a gun and you want me to use a stick?” She smacked him in the arm with the bokken and caused his last shot to miss.

“Fine. Take the damn gun then.” He swapped weapons with her and grabbed her free hand. “But we are leaving right the fuck now.” He swatted three more dwellers to the side and pulled Emily out the door to the apartment. There were two level 4 dwellers in the hall. He bashed their heads in and noticed a small hole in the door of one of the apartments he’d passed. “Stairs. Quick.”

They rushed for the stairs. As the two got to the bottom floor Kai heard a hiss from beneath the stairwell. He spun and brandished the bokken towards a massive dweller. Level 8 hovered above its head. He smacked the creature twice in the head as two shots rang out next to his ear. “Oh my god.” Kai grabbed his left ear and pulled his hand away, there was blood on it. “Em you can’t fire that next to my ear.” He looked back at the dweller and his jaw dropped as the creature rose up to nearly four feet tall and hissed at him. He shoved Emily toward the exit and placed himself between her and this monster. Emily stumbled through the door from his shove and ran into a man in leather armor. Kai didn’t notice any of this because as he spun back to face the creature it spit at him and a glob of that spit hit him in the stomach and began to eat its way through his shirt. After the shirt his stomach was next on the acid spit’s dinner menu. The dagger that appeared in the creature’s head didn’t even register for Kai as he began to scream, the flesh on his stomach slowly being eaten.